Websites provide a number of publishing, listing, and price-setting mechanisms whereby a publisher (e.g., a seller) may list or publish information concerning items for sale. The process of creating a listing may be a time-consuming and tedious process. The seller may not have a good idea of what the selling price should be, how much to charge for shipping, or what should go in a description for their item.
Currently, the provision of shipping insurance for items transacted (e.g., by an ecommerce retailer or marketplace) presents a number of challenges. Particularly, in the event that a shipped item is received by a buyer in a damaged condition, or this shipment is lost, it may be difficult for the seller to recover the expense of the damage or a lost item. While the shipping carriers such as USPS (UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE)), UPS (United Parcel Service), FedEx (Federal Express) do offer insurance, the seller typically needs to provide evidence of the damaged delivery or loss to the shipping carrier. This requires that the buyer needs to ship the damaged item back to the seller, as the shipping carrier will only deal with the party (i.e. the seller) that purchased the insurance policy. This presents a number of challenges to sellers. Other companies enable a seller to buy insurance. However, the claim process for the insurance provided by these services is complicated and challenging. Furthermore, most of the shipping carriers (E.g., USPS) offer only a flat insurance rate that is only based on the value of the merchandise being shipped for all sellers.